School Report: A Trip to Seaford College

LewesWildlife
, 16 July 2021
School Report: A Trip to Seaford College
Pyramidal Orchids / James Duncan

Sussex Wildlife Trust's Community Action team went back to college this week. We received an invite from Seaford College (near Petworth) to take a look at the wildlife improvements being made on their expansive 400 acre campus. 

Seaford College's Paul Boarer (Estates Manager - Grounds) has been working hard to make areas of the college wildlife friendly.

MB Forestry (1)

Our first stop was an impressive chalk bank created by Paul with support and advice from Charles Winchester of the South Downs National Park Authority and local resident (and SWT volunteer) Matthew Sennitt. This long bank will be fantastic for wildlife in the future. Students will be planting chalk flowers along the bank and, as it develops, it will be a haven for insects and basking reptiles. We're really interested in seeing how this develops.

Chalk

Paul was particularly proud of a recent wildflower meadow that has been created at the college. And so he should be - it looked amazing and was alive with bees, butterflies, beetles and other insects.

Meadow (1)

In the past few weeks the warm weather has encouraged the emergence of many Marbled White butterflies. There were plenty enjoying the meadow including this mating pair.

Marbled

James Duncan spotted a Downland Villa - a relative of the bee-fly - flying through the meadow flowers. This bee-fly species was once feared extinct in Britain but was re-discovered in The Cotswolds in 2000. Since its discovery in Sussex in 2016 this insect seems to be doing very well and spreading across the county. Wild flower meadows like the one created by Paul are helping this species, and many others, to recover.

Villa

Around the college grounds large areas have been left unmowed allowing the wild flowers, grasses and the insects that depend on them to flourish. This in turn is helping the local birds, mammals and reptiles too. By leaving areas under some of the college's impressive parkland trees unmown they are avoiding compaction of the soil by vehicles. This compaction affects root systems, the fragile networks which provide life to trees.

Tree

The harvesting of a large swathe of Western Hemlock conifers - planted as a crop many decades ago on the north slope of the Downs - is giving Paul the opportunity to plan replacing this dense, dark, regimented plantation with a wildlife friendly habitat of native tree species. This part of the South Downs is the only known home in Sussex of the Plumed Prominent moth. Adding a few Field Maple trees to the replanting plan - the foodplant of the moth's caterpillar- will hopefully assist this species. The adjacent Duncton Hangar was known as the best site in Britain for the rare Cheese Snail. You may be reassured to know that the name comes from its appearance (like a wheel of cheese) as opposed to its taste.


In other woodland areas Paul is managing the woodland to create more glades allowing sunlight back into the wood. There were plenty of Silver-washed Fritillary butterflies enjoying these new glades when we visited.


Gate (1)

It was great to see so many areas of the college being managed with wildlife in mind. We finished our tour on a bank behind the college which was full of orchids, twayblades and bellflowers. 2021 has been a great year for orchids across the county and this bank certainly looked impressive.

Bank

I spotted the distinctive hoverfly Chrysotoxum bicinctum buzzing around. It seemed to be enjoying the bank as much as me.

14067837 1097778273645250 7572920910940204343 o

It was great to see the work that Paul, Matthew, Charles and Seaford College are undertaking for wildlife - it's certainly making a big difference.


IMG 0769

Leave a comment

Comments

  • Johanna Heane:

    Excellent work . Are the grounds open to he public at all ?

    24 Aug 2021 19:42:00

  • Carol Wilson:

    Totally fabulous

    24 Aug 2021 20:51:00

Time Δ Debug Message - Perch Runway 3.2
1783072790.93370 [906] SELECT p.pagePath, pr.routePattern, pr.routeRegExp, p.pageTemplate, pr.routeOrder, s.settingValue AS siteOffline FROM swt_pages_staging p LEFT JOIN swt_page_routes pr ON p.pageID=pr.pageID LEFT JOIN swt_settings s ON s.settingID='siteOffline' UNION SELECT NULL AS pagePath, pr2.routePattern, pr2.routeRegExp, pr2.templatePath AS pageTemplate, pr2.routeOrder, NULL AS siteOffline FROM swt_page_routes pr2 WHERE templateID!=0 ORDER BY routeOrder ASC, pagePath ASC
1783072790.95930.0256Matched route: news/[slug:s]
1783072790.95940.0001Server address: 216.73.216.251
1783072790.95950Using master page: /templates/pages/blog/post.php
1783072790.95950Page arguments: 
Array
(
    [0] => /news/school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college
    [s] => school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college
    [1] => school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college
)
1783072790.95990.0004 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072790.96110.0012 [86] SELECT DISTINCT settingID, settingValue FROM swt_settings WHERE userID=0
1783072790.96280.0017 [1] SELECT locationID FROM swt_shop_tax_locations WHERE locationIsHome=1 LIMIT 1
1783072790.96330.0005INSERT INTO swt_shop_cart(memberID,locationID,currencyID,cartPricing,cartProperties) VALUES(NULL,'1',47,'standard','[]')
1783072790.96530.0019 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22561873
1783072790.96580.0005 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22561873
1783072790.96630.0005 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_sales WHERE saleFrom<='2026-07-03 09:59:00' AND saleTo>'2026-07-03 09:59:00' AND saleActive=1 AND saleDeleted IS NULL ORDER BY saleOrder ASC
1783072790.96750.0012 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-03 09:59:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 10
1783072790.96970.0022 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783072790.97030.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postID=2576 AND postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-03 09:59:00'
1783072790.97110.0008 [13] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
1783072790.97170.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blogs ORDER BY blogTitle ASC
1783072790.97240.0007 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=33 LIMIT 1
1783072790.9730.0006Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783072790.97320.0002 [162] SELECT catID, catPath FROM swt_categories
1783072790.97410.0009 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-03 09:59:00' AND postSlug='school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college'
1783072790.99480.0207Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783072790.99530.0005 [250] SELECT country, countryID FROM swt_shop_countries WHERE countryActive=1 ORDER BY country ASC
1783072790.9970.0016Using template: /templates/pages/attributes/seo.html
1783072790.99720.0002 [1] SELECT regionID, regionTemplate, regionPage, regionRev AS rev FROM swt_content_regions WHERE regionKey='Banner image' AND (regionPage='/news/post' OR regionPage='*')
1783072790.9980.0008 [nil] SELECT * FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, c.regionID, idx.pageID, c.itemJSON, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_content_index idx JOIN swt_content_items c ON idx.itemID=c.itemID AND idx.itemRev=c.itemRev AND idx.regionID=c.regionID JOIN swt_content_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev AND idx2.indexKey='_order' WHERE ((idx.regionID=104 AND idx.itemRev=0)) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev ) as tbl GROUP BY itemID, pageID, itemJSON, sortval, regionID ORDER BY sortval ASC
1783072790.99930.0013 [82] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageDepth >=0 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783072791.00230.003 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.00290.0006 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783072791.00510.0022Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template.html
1783072791.00520 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.00610.0009 [4] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.00650.0005 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.00960.003 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.01060.001 [7] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.01130.0007 [9] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783072791.01340.0021 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' OR pageSortPath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.01420.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageHidden=0 AND pageNew=0 AND pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition
1783072791.01630.0021 [1] Using template: /templates/navigation/breadcrumbs.html
1783072791.01670.0004Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783072791.0170.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='3' LIMIT 1
1783072791.01760.0006Using template: /templates/blog/author.html
1783072791.01790.0004 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='school-report-a-trip-to-seaford-college')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-03 09:59:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 1
1783072791.02010.0022 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783072791.02060.0005 [1] Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783072791.02340.0028Using template: /templates/blog/comment_form.html
1783072791.02440.001 [2] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_comments WHERE 1=1 AND postID=2576 AND commentStatus='LIVE' ORDER BY FIELD(webmentionType, 'like', 'repost', 'comment', NULL) ASC, commentDateTime ASC
1783072791.07730.0529 [2] Using template: /templates/blog/comment.html
1783072791.07810.0007Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783072791.07820.0002 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='3' LIMIT 1
1783072791.07880.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/what-we-do' OR pageSortPath='/what-we-do' LIMIT 1
1783072791.07940.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-002' LIMIT 1
1783072791.080.0006 [7] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-002%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783072791.08260.0026 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.08320.0006 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783072791.08560.0024 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783072791.08670.0011 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783072791.08740.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783072791.08790.0005 [38] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783072791.09080.0029 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.09130.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783072791.09390.0026 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783072791.09730.0034 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/visit' OR pageSortPath='/visit' LIMIT 1
1783072791.10180.0044 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-004' LIMIT 1
1783072791.10310.0014 [30] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-004%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783072791.10660.0034 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.10760.001 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783072791.11130.0037 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783072791.11470.0034 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783072791.11540.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783072791.11590.0005 [11] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783072791.12470.0088 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783072791.12560.0008 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783072791.12820.0026 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783072791.12940.0012Request time: 0.1985
1783072791.12940Process time: 0.1983
1783072791.12940Memory: 1.6496